ATLANTA (AP) -- An Atlanta man is suing the Georgia Department of Driver Services, contending that his rights were violated when the state rejected his application for vanity plates making reference to his sexual orientation.

James Cyrus Gilbert maintains in the lawsuit that state officials rejected his application for the tags 4GAYLIB, GAYPWR and GAYGUY.

All three vanity plates are on the list of vanity plates banned by the state, although the state has approved plates expressing some political or religious expressions.

Gilbert said he wasn't asking for a plate that was vulgar or "over the top."

Representatives of the state Attorney General's office, Georgia Department of Driver Services and the Department of Revenue, the agency that administers vanity plates, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Ten months to next year's midterm elections, Democrats are determined to make Congress' slim production of fewer than 60 laws and plenty of incompletes - on immigration, gun control, tax reform and basic spending bills - a defining issue, heaping much of the blame on the GOP-led House for obstructing President Barack Obama's second-term agenda.

A senior State Department official says Secretary of State John Kerry will try this week to get Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a framework for negotiating a final peace agreement, yet cautions against raising expectations for Kerry's latest round of shuttle diplomacy.

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The Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners (BOC) recently signed a Settlement Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), five years after an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) audit of county facilities.